


The Swan Scandal

by Kymbersmith90



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan Smut, F/M, Fluff, Midwives, Modern Royalty, Pregnancy, Romance, Royalty, UK Setting, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2020-01-07 14:26:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18412496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kymbersmith90/pseuds/Kymbersmith90
Summary: Midwife Emma Swan finally knows what it’s like to be on the other side of her job, after a one-night stand with a handsome navy captain leaves her pregnant. Four months later she’s come to terms with the idea of being a single parent, and is excited to see her baby once more when her shift ends, at her next ultrasound scan. But the arrival of a famous face to open the new water birthing suite at her hospital could put a dent in those plans.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> **My endless thanks go to @forget-me-not-s, @kmomof4, @bmbbcs4evr, @jonirobinson64, @unworried-corsair, @vancouverina and @resident-of-storybrooke for all of their help and support with this story.**

“Hey Ems, I think you have an admirer,” Belle called out, shouting over the loud music to make herself heard.

“Oh, he’s been staring all night,” Ashley giggled. “I think he’s just waiting for a chance to get her alone so that he can make his move.”

Emma turned her head ever-so-slightly, making it look like she was listening to something her friends were saying, as she peered into the darkened corner that made up the VIP section of the club. Sure enough, tall-dark-and-handsome was still sitting at the very edge of the roped-off section. His eyes would occasionally drift her way so that he could drink in her form before he would return his attention to his drinking buddies.

“I’m uh… I’m just gonna go and use the bathroom,” she told her friends, pushing up from her seat to smooth a hand down the white dress she was wearing.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Belle asked.

“She’s not going for the facilities,” Ruby snorted out. The amount of vodka she’d consumed that night had made her giggles a little higher pitched than usual, and Emma rolled her eyes at her friend's antics.

“I think I’ll be okay,” she assured the group, as she reached for her bag and set off towards the far end of the building. The restrooms were located just off a long corridor and in a room of their own, away from the loud music and crowded dance floor. It was the perfect place to escape for a few moments to catch your breath and freshen up a little. But when Emma left the women’s bathroom to head back to her friends, she wasn’t at all surprised to find someone else waiting just outside of the door, lounging casually against the wall.

“The men’s room is on the other side,” she told him.

“I know. I’m not here for that.”

“Then what are you here for?” she challenged. The alcohol in her system wasn’t strong enough to leave her feeling like she wasn’t in control of herself, but it was enough to make her a little bolder than she would normally be without it. And a whole hell of a lot flirtier.

“To ask if maybe I could buy you a drink?”

Emma bit down softly on her lip as she considered his offer. She knew what he really wanted. A drink would inevitably lead to dancing. Dancing which would at some point become grinding. And then they’d find themselves back in that corridor once more, desperately trying to scratch an itch that seemed to be flaring for them both.

Emma usually prided herself on the fact that she wasn’t _that_ kind of girl. She didn’t do one night stands and quick shags in the hallways of clubs. But it had been so long since someone had scratched that itch for her, and the guy offering to do so was hotter than sin!

“Okay,” she agreed softly. “You can buy me a drink.”

* * *

“So, what do I call you?” he asked, as the two of them took a seat around a small table not far from where Emma’s friends were sat watching their every move.

“Swan,” she told him. “You can call me Swan.”

“No names?”

“Am I ever gonna see you again?” Emma challenged, even though she already knew what the answer would be.

“Possibly.”

“Then the next time I see you, I’ll tell you my name,” she chuckled, as she took a healthy sip from her whiskey sour. “Now, what should I call you?”

Tall-dark-and-handsome seemed to take a moment to think it over before he finally spoke again. "Jones. You can call me Jones."

“Okay then, Jones.” Emma downed what was left of her drink before she stood up and extended a hand back to him. “Do you wanna dance with me?”

Jones took a moment to swirl the rest of the amber liquid around his glass before he finished his drink and then slipped his hand into hers. He quite liked the confident way that she strode through the crowd of people already gyrating on the dancefloor, to find a spot that she deemed perfect somewhere close to the middle of the space. When she turned to face him, Swan let go of his hand and closed her eyes for a few seconds before her hips began to move. He stood and watched her for the longest moment, completely enchanted by her beauty and the fluidity of her movements… until he noticed that the others around them seemed to be watching her too.

Jones wound his arm around her waist to pull her back into his chest, and Emma giggled a little at the action. “You do know that we’ve only just met, right?” she teased. “I’m not sure you’re allowed to be jealous so soon.”

“Well, I am,” was all he said in reply, as he began moving the two of them together to the music that was doing it’s best to drown out their conversation.

Emma wasn’t sure how long they spent on the dancefloor. One moment she would be dancing freely, allowing herself just to get lost in the rhythm of the music, and the next she would be back in his arms. The beat of the tracks seemed to merge together until Emma wasn’t sure if the same one was still playing, or if it had just come around again.

But one thing she was certain of was the effect she seemed to be having on Jones. Even through the denim of his jeans, he was struggling to hide it.

“I have a room in the city,” he leaned down to whisper into her ear, before placing a kiss just behind it.

Emma could feel his smirk against her skin as she melted further into his embrace.

“Come back with me?”

She bit down on her bottom lip as she considered his request. Emma didn’t like the idea of just taking off without her friends when she’d come out to celebrate Belle’s promotion with them. But she also knew that if they had heard his offer, they’d probably be calling her a taxi right about now. And she had to admit that the prospect of a hotel bed was much more appealing than a corridor in a busy, sweaty club.

“Okay,” she said eventually, surprising herself a little.

Jones paused for a moment to pull a top-of-the-range phone from his pocket and tapped out some kind of message before he slid it away and reached for her hand. “Come on,” he encouraged, “there’s a car waiting outside for us.”

“Just how rich are you?” Emma teased softly.

Jones waited until they’d fought their way through the crowds in the room and pushed through a back door, onto the much quieter street outside, before he turned to ask, “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

“Not a clue,” she giggled. “I just figured that to use the VIP room, you were probably someone well-off.”

“I guess you could say that.” He guided her down the path and across the road with a steady hand on the small of her back, before pulling open a door on a black Range Rover for her to climb up into.

Once Emma had taken her seat, Jones slid easily in beside her and the door closed behind him. He said nothing as the person behind the wheel pulled smoothly away from the curb and began the drive back to whatever hotel it was that he was staying at.

The two of them remained silent for the duration of the ride, both still enjoying that pleasant buzz the alcohol was giving them, as Jones stroked his thumb softly over the back of Emma’s hand. She wasn’t sure when he’d taken it again, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to let her go.

When the car rolled to a gentle stop, Emma was surprised to find them at what looked to be another back entrance. The guy behind the wheel hopped out of the vehicle to pull open her door and she stepped down as elegantly as she could. “Thanks,” she said, offering him a small smile before smoothing a hand down her dress while she waited for Jones to join her.

“Yes. Thank you, Jacob,” he called out, his tone biting with his jealousy. “That’ll be all for tonight.”

“Yes, Sir,” Jacob replied, pushing the door closed and making his way back to the driver’s side of the car. Jones didn’t bother waiting for it to pull away. Instead, he gave a gentle tug on Emma’s hand to guide her into the building.

She wasn’t familiar with any of the corridors he walked her down, but that wasn’t really surprising. Emma might have lived close to the city, but she’d never stayed at a fancy hotel in it before. Whenever they had a girls’ nights out, they always finished the evenings in their own homes as it was much cheaper. And for weekends away, they left the Midlands completely.

She wasn’t tipsy enough not to notice the men in suits outside of the door Jones stopped her in front of, though. Emma raised a single brow in question, unsure of how to voice her concerns, but Jones simply shrugged it off. When he eventually pushed through the door to his suite she blurted out, “You’re not dangerous, are you?” before she could think it through.

“That depends on who you ask,” he chuckled. At Emma’s unamused look he hastened to add, “I’m a Captain with His Majesty’s Royal Navy.”

“You’re a navy officer?”

“Captain,” he corrected, as he took a step closer to her and settled his large hands onto her hips. “My God you’re stunning. I noticed you the moment you walked into that club tonight. And I _know_ I wasn’t the only one.”

Emma swallowed hard at the lust that was visibly darkening his eyes. "You uh... you're not so bad yourself… _Captain_ ," she drawled.

The addition of his title had Jones groaning low in the back of his throat before he _finally_ crashed his lips down to hers. Emma dropped her bag to the floor between them as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders to hang on for the ride. His lips were hot and demanding, pushing against hers in a way that told her just how much he’d been aching for her, while he wrapped his hands around her thighs to lift her up and into his arms. She didn’t hesitate to lock her ankles behind him as she pushed herself further into his embrace. Emma trusted Jones to get them to some kind of flat surface so they could finally release the tension that had been building between them. It had been far too long since she had been kissed, and Emma wasn’t sure she’d ever been kissed the way that Jones was kissing her that evening.

As he began navigating the hotel room he’d booked, Emma dropped her hands down to his shoulders and slowly worked them inwards to start releasing the buttons on his shirt. By the time he dropped her down to the floor by his bed, she had it fully open and untucked from his jeans.

“This fucking dress has been teasing me all night,” Jones told her, as he dropped his head to place nuzzling kisses to the bare flesh between her breasts. The bare flesh that had told him right from the start that she wasn’t wearing a bra that evening.

“Good to know,” Emma panted out. “I guess I won’t be returning it Monday morning.”

“Don’t you fucking dare!”

She swallowed hard at the bolt of lust his command sent through her body and Jones began nosing at the fabric covering her.

“Does this untie?” he mumbled against her skin.

“No,” she gasped out. “There’s a uh… a zip… at the back.”

Jones brought his lips back to hers once more as Emma pushed both his shirt and jacket from his shoulders, leaving his toned torso gloriously bare for her exploration. She wasn’t expecting the brush of hair as she ran her hands down his chest. He had looked like the kinda guy that would wax when she first saw him. But she found herself enjoying the slight tickle it caused as she brushed her fingertips through it. And she ached to feel the way it would scratch deliciously against her breasts when they moved together.

The hard lines of muscle made sense, given what she now knew about him. Emma assumed that the navy would have worked him hard, and she could feel that with every move he made as the muscles in his body flexed and relaxed with his actions.

With all the hair that covered his chest, she was surprised to find his back smooth to the touch. Emma wasn’t sure if it was natural or if Jones preferred things that way, but she found herself loving the contrast between the flawless skin pulled taut over the muscles there, and the gentle tickle that came through running her hands down his chest.

While she was exploring his body, Jones slid his own hands softly up her back until he found the hidden zipper built into her dress. He tugged it down as far as it would go and then pulled back to watch as Swan gently shimmied her shoulders. The white fabric fell easily down her arms and over her chest to pool around her ankles.

Jones swallowed hard at the sight before him. His Swan was stood right next to the bed wearing a pair of black lace panties, black thigh-high boots, and nothing else.

"Fuck me," he groaned, as he leaned down to pull off one shoe and the sock that covered his foot, before switching to the other.

Emma made a move to do the same thing but was stopped by his firm command of, “Don’t! Leave them on.”

“Yes… _Captain_ ,” she purred, taking a few small steps back while she watched him work the buckle of his belt open. Emma pulled herself up and onto the bed as Jones pushed his jeans and underwear down in one confident move before he kicked them off to the side. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the seductress spread out over the sheets.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” he told her. Jones climbed up onto the end of the bed and then crawled his way over her, pressing wet kisses along her body as he went.

“You don’t need to flatter me,” she giggled. “I’m already in your bed.”

“I’m not. I’m just… stunned by your beauty, Swan. How are you still single?”

“I work too much,” she replied, even though she knew it wasn’t the entire truth. But they would only have that one night together, so Jones didn’t need to know about her past.

“I know that feeling.”

He locked his eyes with hers for a moment before dipping his head to capture her lips with his own again. When his hand slid up her thigh to draw her leg around his hips they both moaned long and deep at the feel of being pressed so tightly together, separated only by the flimsy barrier of her panties.

Emma had expected him to get straight to the main event, given the position they were in. So when he pulled back to begin trailing kisses down her body, her shocked gasps were completely genuine.

“You uh… you don’t have to do that,” she protested weakly.

“I _want_ to,” Jones assured her, as he gently pulled her panties down and off her legs, before tossing them somewhere over his left shoulder.

Emma’s eyes slid closed in embarrassment when she felt him settle between her legs and gently part her. She wasn’t sure any man had ever gotten that close before, but at the first brush of his nose against where she was already wet and aching for him, she forgot all about her awkwardness.

“Oh,” she sighed, letting her legs fall open a little more as Jones took his time to explore her. He trailed his nose over the sensitive spots that had her hips bouncing in his grasp, before following its path with his tongue. By the time he slipped his index finger into her to gently build that pressure forming inside, Emma was a hot, writhing, begging mess. So few men in her life had ever taken the time to focus on her, and none of them had ever been as thorough as Jones was being that evening.

“Oh, _Jones_ ,” she moaned, as he finally suckled on her clit, giving her a teasing hint of the pleasure she knew was soon to follow.

“Killian,” he mumbled against her flesh. The sound vibrated wonderfully through her body and she moaned again. “My name’s Killian.”

“Emma,” she panted out, when he curled his fingers inside of her. “ _Please, Killian_.”

That was all the encouragement he needed to apply just the right amount of pressure to have Emma's world sudden darken before those beautiful spots of pleasure began to burst behind her eyes.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, yes, yes!”

As Killian eased her through her climax he watched as her face contorted beautifully with the pleasure _he_ was giving to her, before finally pulling his fingers from her body. While Emma lay panting for breath beneath him, he reached for his jeans and the wallet inside of the back pocket to pull out the condom he always kept inside of it. Killian took a moment to watch as Emma seemed to come back to herself before he rolled the latex down and over himself.

“Do you think you can handle another?” he teased, gathering her into his arms once more.

“Stop gloating and just fuck me, Captain.”

Killian slid into her in one long, confident move, effectively silencing her in the process. He gave Emma a moment to adjust to that wonderful stretch and burn that came from being filled so completely before he hitched her leg back over his hip to settle into an easy rhythm. That familiar push and pull had never felt so good before, and the way that Emma scraped the heel of her boot down his back only seemed to heighten the pleasure from the moment, as he bent his head to begin pressing wet kisses to her skin.

“Oh, _God_ ,” Emma gasped, when a particularly hard punch of his hips had her legs tightening around him.

Killian seemed to get the hint as he picked up his pace, each snap of his hips bordering on painfully pleasurable while he drove them both higher and higher.

“So good,” she panted in his ear. “ _So good_.” She tightened the hand that was woven through his hair to tug his lips back to hers, offering him suckling kisses and teasing nips of her teeth between long, confident caresses with her tongue.

Emma was pretty sure that the heel of her boot tore through the sheets on the bed at one point. The loud sound of fabric ripping was a complete contrast to the harsh pants and whispered pleas that were filling the room. But neither of them seemed to care.

“I can’t wait to feel you come around me,” Killian panted into her ear, letting his tongue flick out to gently tease the lobe between his words. “You’re already so fucking tight.”

As if he’d commanded her to do so, Emma felt herself begin to flutter around him at his dirty words, and Killian moaned at how incredible that small action felt.

“So close,” she breathed harshly. “I’m so close.”

He dropped a hand between their bodies to slide down to where they were joined, making them both groan in frustration once more before he brought it back up to circle her clit.

“That’s it, Beautiful,” he praised. Emma’s moans and pants became higher pitched and needier as her nails dug into his shoulder blades. “Let me feel you. Come all over my cock for me, Love.”

“Killian…. _Yes_ ,” she cried, as a sharp pinch from his fingers finally sent her crashing over that precipice once more and into the pleasurable abyss that waited.

When Emma came back down to herself it was to watch while Jones… no… _Killian_  pulled off his condom and wrapped it in a tissue.

He gave her a soft smile as he reached for her foot and pulled off the boot that was still covering it before he did the same to the other. When he was finished, Killian slid back into the bed beside her, tugging the torn sheets up and over their naked bodies. Neither of them said anything as he turned to curl his body around hers, pulling Emma back into his arms. He brushed the hair away from her neck to press a sweet kiss there, but his Swan was already asleep by the time he reached for the light.

* * *

When Killian woke the next morning, it was with the resolve to ask for Emma’s number before she left for the day. But as awareness slowly began creeping into the haze of sleep, he realised that he was on his usual side of the bed, and the other was stone cold.

He bolted awake to check the room. His clothes were still where he remembered taking them off the night before and his wallet was still on the table beside the bed, but Emma’s dress and boots were gone. And so was she!

“Fuck,” he cursed, rubbing a harsh hand over his face.

_How would he ever find her again, when all he had to go on was a relatively common name and a popular description?_

“Fuck,” he cursed again, as he realised that he probably never would.

* * *

Before he left Nottingham that afternoon, Killian took a moment to clean his hotel room for the staff. He righted chairs, threw out empty packets and bottles, and made his bed as best he could.

He found a pair of black lace panties behind the television set in the corner of the bedroom and smiled to himself when he realised that Emma must have forgotten them, before he slipped them into his pocket.

When he pushed the tissue containing the used condom into the bin, he thought absolutely nothing of the fact that it was stickier and wetter than it should have been. After all, it wasn’t like he’d noticed the small tear in the tip when he’d taken it off.

“Are you ready to leave, Your Highness?”

“Yes, Jacob,” he called back, taking one last look around the empty suite before he turned on his heels to stride confidently out of the room.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Emma's look for this chapter is based on Jen's look for the Marchesa fashion show during New York Fashion Week September 2017**


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Sorry for being MIA for a while. I had to take a step back to work on improving my health and then catch up at work.**

**Twenty-One Weeks Later**

“That’s it, Abbie, one more big push for me,” Emma encouraged.

“I can’t do it,” Abbie cried, her pain and frustration taking over at that moment.

“Yes, you can,” her midwife soothed. “You’re almost there. One more big push for me and you’ll be able to hold your beautiful little boy in your arms at last.”

Abbie’s husband leaned in closer to rub his wife’s back soothingly as she bent forward in the bed when her next contraction hit.

“That’s it,” Emma praised, “You’re doing so well. Keep that pressure up for me. You’ve got this, Abbie. He’s on his way. Keep going, keep going, keep going.”

With one last big push, Abbie’s little boy made his entrance into the world, and into the arms of his mother’s midwife.

“You did it,” Emma praised softly. She was already working on autopilot as she gently cleaned the little boy down to clear his airways, and then lifted him up and into the arms of his tired, but truly elated mother.

While the new parents in the room were enjoying their first few moments with the tiny addition to their family, Emma began the process of cleaning up a little to allow for as much blood to pass from the placenta to the baby as possible.

When she’d finished, she quickly changed her gloves and prepared the Syntocinon injection to help with the delivery of the placenta. “Okay, Abbie, you might feel a short, sharp scratch on your thigh,” she told the new mum, but as was normal, her patient didn’t seem to register either Emma’s voice or the injection that was given to her. Emma waited a few more minutes to allow for the blood transfer to finish before she clamped the cord, ready for cutting.

“Does daddy wanna do the honours?” she asked, holding out a rather scary looking pair of scissors to the man who was still staring down at the little boy in his wife’s arms.

“Uh… yeah,” he mumbled softly, scrubbing a hand over his face as he took the instrument and made the cut exactly where Emma had directed. “That was kinda gross,” he whispered to her, as he handed them back.

“It always is,” Emma chuckled. She watched him make his way back up to the head of the bed to join his wife and son, before she turned her attention back to preparing for the delivery of the placenta.

* * *

“Mrs. Wallace in room four is now the proud mother of a healthy baby boy,” Emma declared an hour later, as she dropped down into the only free seat behind the large desk.

“Bless her. Did she need the forceps in the end?” Belle asked.

“No. The mere thought of them seemed to be enough to motivate her to push past that barrier.”

“It often is,” her friend chuckled, before turning back to her own heavy workload.

The two women sat in silence for a moment, just allowing the calm of the unit to wash over them for what felt like the first time all day. Emma knew that she had a ton of paperwork to get started on before Mrs. Wallace could be discharged with her new son, but she’d been in the delivery room for over four hours, and the chance to just sit and do nothing for ten minutes rarely presented itself in her line of work.

“How are you feeling?” Belle asked, picking up on her friend’s exhaustion.

“Like I could sleep for the rest of the week,” she chuckled. “Thank God I actually have it off.”

Belle leaned over to rub her friend’s shoulder in solidarity as Emma began tapping away at the computer to start the last of the work she needed to do before her shift ended. It was unlikely that she’d be out of the hospital on time, given how long she’d spent in the delivery room with Mrs. Wallace. She only hoped that nobody else would come in needing a midwife before she could escape for the day.

“Miss. Styne has a little girl,” Ruby declared, making her own way back to the large desk in the centre of the room. “A healthy seven pounds and three ounces of complete adorableness.”

“Ugh, how do you always get the easy deliveries?” Emma sighed. Her friend didn’t appear to have a hair out of place. It really was unfair.

“I’m just lucky,” Ruby teased. “You guys should probably go and clean up though.”

“Why?” Emma was already distracted by the details she was busy entering into the digital records they kept, so she completely missed the looks on her friends’ faces.

“Because we have visitors this morning, remember?”

Looking up at the brunette leaning over the desk, Emma cocked a brow that clearly communicated she remembered nothing, before getting back to her work.

“The administrators are out in force because that hot prince is coming to officially open the new water birthing centre,” Belle reminded her gently.

“Hot prince?” Emma asked.

“Yeah, you know the one. The guy that isn’t gonna be king. He was just away with the navy recently doing…. something… somewhere. I dunno. I remember it was a big secret though.”

“Yeah, Prince Killian,” Ruby added with a dreamy sigh.

“Killian?” Emma’s heart flip-flopped a little at the familiar-sounding name. Of course, her Killian wasn’t a prince. While she didn’t know much about the royal family, she was pretty certain that this Prince Killian wouldn’t be spending his free time picking up strangers for one night stands in clubs in Nottingham. He’d probably never even been to Nottingham before. But ever since that night, almost five months ago, she’d been asking herself the same question over and over again:

_What if you’d waited to leave until he’d woken up?_

“Yep. How do you not know this?” Ruby asked. “They’re always in the news for something.”

“I read the news that covers the more important world issues,” she defended hotly. “And I highly doubt that someone lucky enough to have been born into the royal family is using their time and money to advance medical breakthroughs or put an end to the wars around the globe. So he doesn’t really come up that much when I check the BBC News app.”

“You live such a sheltered life,” her friend chided good-naturedly. “But seriously, you should go and clean up a little. They’re gonna be taking pictures and recording video footage.”

“Of course they are,” Emma sighed, as she pushed her chair away from the desk. “Heaven forbid they wait until shift change is over!”

Ruby watched her friend head back to the locker room, grumbling to herself the entire way there, before she dropped down into the free chair that Emma had just vacated to start work on her own discharge papers.

* * *

“This is gonna have to do,” Emma declared, as she made her way back to the midwives’ station a few moments later. She’d changed into a fresh dress, tidied up her hair and applied a little more foundation. But it was nowhere near as glamorous as her look for a night out would have been.

“I have some lipstick in my bag that you could use,” Ruby suggested, even as her friend shot a deadly glare in her direction.

“I am ten hours into a twelve-hour shift on day four of said shift pattern. I’ve delivered two babies already today. I am _not_ putting on lipstick for work. I don’t care what family this guy is from. He can kiss my arse if he thinks I’m gonna be looking my best right now and so can the rest of the damned administration team.”

Ruby raised her hands in submission before standing to let her friend sit back down so she could try and finish as much of her paperwork as she possibly could, before their shift was due to end. Unfortunately, Emma hadn’t even made a dent in her workload before their chairman and CEO were making their way onto the unit to begin preparing all of the available staff for the arrival of their guest of honour.

Emma tried her hardest to hide behind the desk so that she could spend the remainder of her shift doing her job, instead of kissing people’s arses, but she couldn’t dodge the all-seeing eye of their Matron.

“Come along, Emma,” Kathryn encouraged. “Surely you’ll enjoy getting out from behind that desk for a while?”

“I have been out from behind this desk,” she grumbled. “To deliver two babies.”

“And that’s exactly the kind of thing His Royal Highness is going to want to hear. The paperwork can wait until he’s left.”

Emma wanted to grumble a little bit more about their lack of overtime pay, but she knew that she could only get away with so much before she was given a formal warning. So she sucked up her complaints and tried to fix the best fake smile onto her face that she could possibly manage, as she dragged herself over to the small line of staff that was being assembled to greet the prince that would soon be arriving.

“Cheer up, Ems,” Ruby teased. “How many other times in your life will you be able to say that you’ve met a member of the royal family?”

“Hopefully never again,” she threw back at her friend, as she sunk back into the wall behind her.

_God, she was exhausted._

* * *

The moment Killian stepped out of his car his hand went to the button on his jacket, to make sure that he was completely presentable, before he turned to wave at the small crowd of people and members of the press that had gathered to see him.

“Good morning, Your Highness. I’m Greg Mendell, the Chairman of Queen’s Medical Centre. It’s a pleasure to have you here with us today.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” he assured the guy, as he offered a hand for shaking. As Greg Mendell gestured towards the large building in front of them, Killian turned back to offer one last look at the group of people who had been waiting for his arrival. He knew that the chances of _her_ being there would have been small, given that she genuinely didn’t seem to have recognised him that evening. But it hadn’t stopped him from hoping. Being back in the city once more was making his entire body ache with the need to try and track her down. It had been months, and he still couldn’t get her out of his head.

_How many blonde-haired, twenty-something women called Emma could there possibly be in Nottingham?_

“Tell me about the new unit,” he encouraged, hoping that his work for that morning would help to distract him from dwelling on what could have been.

“We call it The Sanctuary,” Mendell explained. “It promotes a more relaxed and natural birthing experience for our women. It’s run by an incredibly talented midwifery staff, who are some of the very best in this country. We have a few of the night shift here eager to meet you this morning, and I’m told that the unit as a whole has seen twelve births while they’ve been on shift. So I’m sure they have some truly wonderful stories to share with you today.”

“That’s fantastic, but they must all be so exhausted,” he chuckled. “What kind of shift patterns do they work?”

“The usual for a member of the NHS is twelve and a half hours for four days, and then the following four days off.”

“Oh, wow. They’re definitely exhausted then. I could have timed this better.”

Mendell laughed off the prince’s concern as he pointed out a few different areas of the hospital and staff members that they happened to bump into on their way over to the maternity unit. Killian did his best to look interested and make polite conversation where he could, but he had to admit that opening maternity units was not his thing. He was only stepping in that day to fill in for his mother, who had been battling flu all week.

He’d have preferred to have been back at his cottage, enjoying a day of doing nothing rather than jumping straight back into his royal duties. After all, he’d only been in the country for four days after spending sixteen weeks on deployment off the coast of the Falkland Islands. But his father had insisted that he was the only available family member who could step in on such short notice.

When the sign for the maternity unit finally came into view he breathed a small sigh of relief. Hopefully, he could open the new birthing suite and still make it back home in time for the Champions League game that evening.

“The unit remains locked at all times,” Mendell explained, as he pushed an intercom button on the wall. “Only the staff who work here have an access pass for it, to keep it as secure as possible. And we also offer small electronic tags that are slipped onto babies at birth. They alert the staff if someone tries to leave the unit with a child without authorisation.”

Killian wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be reassured by that knowledge or horrified that children were being security tagged, so he simply smiled and nodded as a buzz rang through the corridor and the light above the door turned green.

“This way,” Mendell encouraged, pulling it open to lead the way down the corridor. The moment they turned the corner at the very end of it Killian could feel the change in atmosphere wash over him. The place felt like it was built on hopes and dreams, and he found himself relaxing a little more with every step that he took.

“These are our assessment rooms,” Mendell explained, as they passed by a series of closed doors on either side of the room. “This is where the women come when they are first admitted to the unit. The staff use these rooms to assess just how far along their labour is. Sometimes the women will be encouraged to head home and return when they’re further along. Other times, they remain here until they’re ready to head down to the delivery suites.”

“Why would you encourage women to go home again?” Killian asked, a little confused as to what he was hearing.

“The suite can only hold so many women, so we encourage those in the early stages of labour to return home and carry on as normally as they possibly can until their contractions become more frequent. That way, we’re not denying beds to women who are about to give birth in favour of those who are hours away. Labour is unpredictable. For some women, it lasts an hour from start to finish. For others, it can take a few days.”

“A few days?” The prince was clearly horrified at the mere thought of someone being in labour for that long, and the people around him chuckled a little at the look on his face. “I’ve never been more pleased to be a guy than I am right now.”

The small party carried on down the hallway, pausing to greet the staff at the midwives’ station as they fielded calls and rushed between rooms, before they approached the line of team members waiting to greet the young prince.

“These are some of our wonderful staff members currently on shift,” Mendell explained. “The midwives gathered here have all been present for births overnight, and just have their paperwork to file before the end of their shifts. But they were very excited to meet you, Your Highness.”

“And I’m excited to meet them,” Killian assured him, before he turned to the first person in line to offer the guy his full attention.

There seemed to be some kind of hierarchy involved in the line-up, as Killian first met with cleaning staff and administrators before he was introduced to volunteers and assistants. The midwives seemed to be towards the end of the gathering and looked to be the most exhausted and unamused of the bunch. Not that Kilian could blame them. The last thing he’d want to do is stand around waiting to greet a member of the royal family if he’d been on his feet for ten hours already.

“This is Belle French,” Mendell introduced, and the young women before him curtsied before taking his offered hand. “She’s been working with us for over four years now and was recently promoted to a team leader role.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Miss French.”

“You too, Your Highness.” The woman might have swooned a little when he smiled down at her, but Killian had long since gotten used to the effect he had on members of the opposite sex.

Her friend stood to her left was much more outgoing. After their introduction, Ruby Lucas spoke for a brief moment about the baby girl she had helped to deliver earlier that morning, and how much she loved her job.

Even though Killian hadn’t been particularly thrilled about the engagement when it had been given to him, he had to admit that hearing the professionals talk about the beauty and miracle of birth, between screams from women currently bringing their children into the world, was rather amusing. And oddly fascinating.

“And this is Emma Swan,” Mendell announced, as they paused before the last person in the small line-up. “I’m told she’s been our MVP on shift today, as two of her ladies have given birth in the last ten hours. Isn’t that right, Emma?”

Killian didn’t hear Emma’s reply. He hadn’t heard anything after Mendell had said her name, because the moment he had, the prince’s eyes had shot down to meet hers as he sucked in a startled breath.

_Emma Swan… why hadn’t he made that connection twenty-one weeks ago?_

“Emma,” he finally whispered, completely unaware of everyone else around him watching the two of them interact with growing levels of concern.

Emma seemed to be just as stunned as he was as her mouth hung open a little in surprise, and her eyes had widened to an almost impossible size.

“I uh… It’s nice to see you again,” he offered lamely, because asking _why did you sneak away while I was sleeping?_ would cause them both far too many problems that morning.

“Yeah. You too,” she eventually whispered, as she swallowed heavily.

Killian shook his head a little to try and clear it of all the memories and questions that had come rushing back to him at the sound of her name. He was working and he knew that he was being photographed, so he really needed to put his game face back on. But he still wasn’t over the shock of seeing her standing before him that morning. He was half-tempted to pinch himself, just to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming.

“Are you okay?” someone whispered.

Killian had just opened his mouth to reply to the question when he realised that it wasn’t being directed at him. Ruby Lucas had a hand on Emma’s arm and was looking at her friend with an almost motherly amount of worry on her face.

“Do you need to sit down?” she pressed.

“No. I’m fine,” Emma assured her, as she offered the other woman a weak smile. “It’s just been a long day.”

Ruby nodded her head in understanding and gave her friend a small smile of her own before she stepped back into line.

“Sorry,” Emma sighed, as she turned her attention back to the men stood in front of her. “These shifts are bad enough without pregnancy added into the mix.” She must have realised exactly what she’d said the moment she’d finished speaking, as her eyes widened with horror.

“Pregnancy?” Killian asked. His gaze dropped down from Emma’s face to take in the rest of her body and he paled the moment his eyes reached her tummy. While it had been hidden well under the ugly blue dress that formed part of her uniform, now that it had been pointed out to him, it was impossible to miss the slight swelling of her stomach.

_Emma Swan was pregnant._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thank you so much for the incredible reaction to the prologue for this piece. I am blown away by it all.**


	3. Chapter 2

Emma watched as the prince’s eyes dropped down her body to linger over her slightly rounded stomach before they snapped up to meet hers again. She could see the questions behind his gaze, and suddenly the atmosphere in the room felt suffocating.

“I uh… I need to go and sit down,” she declared in a shaky voice, before taking off for the privacy of the on-call room. Once she had the door safely closed behind herself, Emma let the wave of panic she’d been holding in wash over her.

“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God, oh God, oh God,” she chanted as she paced the floor.

Everything had been so simple before.

Sure, her parents had been a little worried at first when she’d told them that she was pregnant, and had met the baby’s father during a drunken one-night stand. Hell, she’d been worried when she’d first taken that test and the little screen had displayed the word _pregnant_ on it.

But eventually things had calmed down, and everyone in her life had seemed to accept that Emma would be having and raising her child alone. Now that she knew exactly who her baby’s father was, and he was right there in the hospital she worked at, she didn’t know what to do.

Would he even believe her if she told him the truth? They had used protection, after all. And it was surprising just how many people didn’t seem to know that condoms weren’t infallible.

She didn’t want him to think that she was trying to trap him into some kind of relationship with her, or that she was hoping to make money from him. But she also wasn’t sure she wanted to let him leave that morning without knowing the truth.

“What am I going to do?” Emma whispered to herself, as she dropped down heavily onto one of the beds in the room.

* * *

Killian’s initial plan had been to get in and out of the hospital as fast as he could. Pregnancy and babies weren’t really his thing, and he wasn’t sure he’d be welcomed on a ward full of new mothers, celebrating the births of their babies.

But now that he’d seen Emma again, and even with what had been revealed to him during those brief few moments, he knew that he couldn’t leave without saying a proper goodbye to her.

So Prince Killian lingered for as long as he could. He spoke with the staff who were free to talk to him about the new water birthing centre that was now a part of the hospital, and with the patients that were happy to speak to a member of the royal family between feeding their babies or labour contractions.

He knew that Emma would have to emerge eventually, and when she did, he quickly excused himself to make his way over to where she was trying her best to sneak out of the on-call room unseen.

“Emma,” he greeted softly, making her jump a little in surprise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s okay,” she assured him, as she dropped a hand down to rub over her rounded belly. “Is there um… is there anything I can help you with, Your Highness?”

“Killian. Of all the people here, _you_ can call me Killian,” he told her, as he stuffed his hands into his back pockets. “And no. I uh… I just wanted to offer you my congratulations. Your partner must be very happy.”

Killian wasn’t sure why he’d said it. He’d been trying hard not to think about Emma Swan having a partner to go home to when her shift was over. Or even worse, having one to go home to after he’d fucked her that night all those months before.

“I don’t have a partner,” she quickly blurted out, her face flaming bright red with her admission.

“Oh. Sorry. I uh… I just assumed. I mean… the baby.” An alarm bell in the back of his mind was beginning to ring, but Killian did his best to ignore it. Because _that_ couldn’t possibly be true.

Emma flicked a quick glance up and down the corridor before she opened the door to the on-call room once more, and nodded her head to suggest that he should step inside. Killian did so without hesitation, even as a look of curiosity began working its way over his face.

When Emma had the door safely shut behind herself she turned to rest her back against it as she twisted the small lock, to make sure that they wouldn’t be interrupted.

“What’s going on, Emma?”

“If I’d have known who you were, I would have found a way to contact you. I would have told you as soon as I knew what was happening,” she began carefully. “But I didn’t know. And I don’t follow you. I barely have the time to follow my family on Facebook as it is, I’m certainly not wasting the time I do have following celebrities who don’t care about my life. But if I’d known, I’d have tried to contact you sooner. I didn’t want you to find out like this, Killian.”

“Find out what?” he pressed. Because if she was trying to say what he thought she was, he was going to need to hear the words with his own ears, while he watched them leave her mouth.

“The baby… the baby’s yours.”

“No,” he chuckled dryly. “No, it’s not. We used a condom.”

“Condoms are not one hundred percent reliable,” she explained patiently, like it was something she’d had to do many times before in her life.

“How do you know it’s mine? It could be any guy’s if that’s the case.”

Emma flinched a little at his biting tone and moved to sit on one of the beds in the room. She really didn’t want to be having this conversation after being awake for over fourteen hours.

“I know it’s yours because you’re the only guy I’ve had sex with in months,” she explained, staring down at the hem of her dress. “I know that’s probably hard to believe, given that I went home with you so easily that night. But I’m not a whore. I just… there was something about you that called to me.”

When she flicked her eyes up to meet his once more they were still icy cold, and Emma hated seeing that look there when she knew how soft and gentle they could be.

“Look, I’m not telling you this because I wanna use my child for money, or fame, or… whatever. I couldn’t care less about that. I just… I thought you deserved to know that you were going to be a father. If you don’t want anything to do with your child that’s fine. I’ve already accepted life as a single parent, so it’s not like it’s a great loss to me.”

When he said nothing else, Emma pushed herself up to her feet, ready to head back to the midwives’ station to finish her paperwork for the shift. She’d just twisted the lock on the door when a strong arm shot out to grab hold of her elbow, and she turned back slowly to find Killian just a step behind her.

“I need some sort of proof,” he told her. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Emma. I want to. I really do. I just… I need some kind of proof. My family… it’s not the first time that someone’s tried to accuse us of impregnating them during a one-night stand. And most of the time, we’ve never even met that person before. Given that you and I actually did the deed, I’m gonna need _something_ more than your word right now to believe this. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

And she really did. As much as the knowledge that he didn’t completely believe or trust her stung, Emma could see why he was asking for irrefutable proof. She didn’t even want to think about all of the false claims that had been made about his family in the past, with the intention of making someone else rich or famous.

“I uh… I can get you a paternity test when the baby’s born,” she told him. “Then you’ll know for sure.”

“Is there not um… surely there’s something we can do before that?” he asked, taking a step closer to her even as he brought a hand up to rub at the stubble that covered his face.

Emma sighed while she considered her options. “There’s a test that can be conducted in utero,” she told him. At the confused look on his face, she clarified, “It means while the baby’s in the womb. It carries a small chance of miscarriage, though. So I um… I’m gonna need some time to think about that. You might just be finding out about this child, but I’ve had over four months to love it.”

“I understand,” he assured her. “I just… if it’s really mine, I’d like the chance to get to know the baby too.”

Emma nodded her understanding even as her eyes began to water slightly. Her damned hormones were all over the place lately and she hated it. She wasn’t normally so emotionally unstable, but she’d cried more so far that year than she had in her entire adult life.

“I uh… I should let you get back to work,” he chuckled. “Can I give you my number? That way, you can call me when you’ve made a decision?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Emma pulled her phone out of the pocket of her dress and unlocked the device before handing it over for Killian to put his details into it. When he passed it back to her their fingers brushed gently against each other’s for just a moment, and her eyes shot up to meet his before she finally pulled away to pocket the device once more.

Either her hormones were still acting up, or that spark of desire that had been present when they’d last seen each other was still there now, and touching him again had brought it roaring back to life.

“It was um… it was nice seeing you again, Emma,” he offered, and she thought she could hear a slight strain to his voice. One that suggested the prince might have felt that spark just like she had.

“Yeah. You too, Killian. I’ll be in touch soon.”

He offered her a tight smile as he made his way past her and over to the door, before turning back to tell her, “Take care.” Prince Killian was gone before Emma could even think to say anything else.

* * *

“Hey, are you okay?” Belle asked, as she dropped down into the seat beside her friend after all of the chaos from the morning had cleared.

“Huh, what?”

“Do you need me to finish up here for you so that you can get home?” She reached out to rub her friend’s arm softly, and Emma sighed a little at the contact.

“Nah. I’m almost finished with this. But thanks for offering.” She gave Belle a small smile before turning her attention back to her work. However, Belle could sense that her friend was still distracted by something, given the lack of typing that was taking place. It was a long few minutes of awkward silence before Emma finally worked up the courage to say, “Hey, Belle, can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” she chuckled. Her shift had been over for thirty-three minutes and all of her work was done. But Belle had noticed the change in her friend after Prince Killian had left the unit, so she’d been waiting around on the off-chance that Emma might need someone to open up to before she left.

“If you were in my situation right now, and you’d found the father of your child, would you consent to a prenatal paternity test to prove he was the baby’s dad, or would you make him wait until after the child was born?”

“You’ve found the guy?” she asked, completely ignoring Emma’s question.

“Maybe. But I think he’s gonna want proof. And I don’t know if I should make him wait for it.”

“Well… I think that depends on a couple of factors,” Belle answered diplomatically. “What’s the advantage of doing the test now?”

“I guess… I guess he’d feel more comfortable getting involved and bonding with the baby, knowing that he was definitely the child’s father.”

“Then in that case, yes. I’d take the test.” At Emma’s raised brow, Belle added, “It carries the same risk as screening for Down’s, or Edwards’ or Patau’s syndrome, and I don’t think you’d hesitate to have the test done in that situation, so that you could adequately prepare yourself for birth. Even though this isn’t quite the same thing, if the father wants to get involved, then this is just another way of preparing yourself for the baby’s birth. I assume one of the advantages to him finding out sooner is that he’d want to be there with you, to see his child brought into this world. And it does only carry a minimal risk,” she reminded her friend. “But this is not a decision to make lightly and it’s certainly not _my_ decision to make. So take some time for yourself and think about it, Emma. Because at the end of the day, _you’re_ the only person whose opinion matters on this.”

“Thanks, Belle. You’re the best,” she told her friend, as she leaned in to offer the other woman a one-armed hug.

“I am! Which is why I’m gonna finish this up so that you can get off.” Belle wore a look on her face that told Emma the issue wasn’t up for debate. “Besides, don’t you have somewhere to be this afternoon?”

Emma dropped her gaze down to the small swell of her stomach as she rubbed a gentle hand over the top of it. “Yeah,” she chuckled. “I do.”

* * *

After heading back to her small home for a few hours to get some sleep, Emma found herself back at Queen’s once more that afternoon, taking a seat in their ultrasound department for her anomaly scan. Even though she was excited to see her baby once more, her mind continued to wander back to the bombshell that had been dropped on her earlier that day.

When she’d first found out that she was pregnant, Emma had tried to track down the mystery guy she’d met in that club, and had failed miserably. She’d spent every night she wasn’t on shift at the bar there for over three weeks, nursing a lemonade, and he’d never once returned. Eventually, she’d been forced to come to terms with the fact that her child would probably grow up never knowing its father.

But now… now she had a whole new set of worries to contend with.

There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Prince Killian was her baby’s father. She hadn’t lied to him when she’d said that he was the only guy she’d been with in months. If anything, she’d probably understated just how long her drought had been, before he’d come into her life. So she knew that when she gave him the DNA test he was asking for, it would tell him that he was going to become a father early next year.

But then what?

Killian had implied that he wanted to be a part of his child’s life, but Emma wasn’t even sure how that would happen. He lived in London and she lived in Nottingham, which wouldn’t make sharing custody easy. From what she could remember of her childhood, her friends with divorced parents hadn’t always enjoyed splitting their time between two homes and two families. And that was without the added complications that came from having an actual prince as a father.

_Oh God, what had she gotten herself into?_

Emma was so caught up in her own mind that she didn’t even hear her sonographer calling out her name when it was time for her appointment.

“Emma Swan,” the technician called a little louder, and her head eventually shot up to meet the other woman’s gaze.

“Yes. Sorry. Long day at work,” she chuckled, as she reached down to grab her bag. Emma made her way through the maze of chairs to follow after the woman dressed all in white, as she was led down the corridor and through to a small, private room.

“It’s no worries. You’re one of us, right?” the technician asked, as she checked the notes written inside the file in her hands.

“Yeah. Midwife.” Emma pulled off her coat to drape it over the back of one of the chairs before she hauled herself up onto the bed.

“Oh, did you get to meet the prince this morning?” The technician was busy pulling her chair up to the portable computer that was placed beside the bed, so she missed the small frown that creased her patient’s face at the mention of the young royal.

“Yeah. But I don’t remember much of it,” Emma lied. “I was ten hours into my shift, so I think I spaced a little.”

“That’s a shame,” the other woman commiserated, before turning her attention back to her job. “If you could just pop the button on your jeans for me and then push them down a little?”

Emma did as she was asked, wiggling the tight material down her hips as she lifted her shirt to expose her slightly rounded belly. The technician handed her a large sheet of tissue paper, which Emma tucked into the top of her underwear, before she warned, “This is going to be a little cold,” as she proceeded to squirt out some gel onto Emma’s tummy.

There was a moment of silence while Emma adjusted to the pressure of the wand moving across her stomach, and the technician used the time to find a good spot to start her measurements from. When she was finally happy, and the sound of soft clicks began to fill the room, she asked, “Was he as good looking in person as he is on TV?”

“Huh?”

“The prince,” she clarified. “He’s always been the better looking of the two. I was just wondering if the magazines and TV enhanced that.”

“Oh, um… no,” Emma mumbled quietly. “He’s uh… he’s better looking in person.”

“Damn.”

The two women shared a slight chuckle before the sonographer reached up to twist the monitor a little towards the bed and said, “There we go. Baby’s nice and relaxed today, sucking on his or her thumb.”

Emma turned her head to fix her eyes on the black and white screen as she watched her child wave its fist around a little, before finally sucking its thumb back into his or her mouth.

“Did you want to know the baby’s gender?”

“No,” she replied. Her eyes were glued to every move her child was making that afternoon, and suddenly things didn’t feel quite as daunting as they had in the waiting room. “Being a midwife, not much surprises me during labour now, so I figured I’d keep this one good surprise for the big day.”

“I don’t blame you,” the other woman assured her, as she went back to work taking all of the necessary measurements to make sure that there wasn’t anything wrong with the baby. Emma’s eyes followed each of the small clicks she made, cataloguing the information she found there herself. While she’d seen plenty of ultrasound scans throughout her career, none of them would ever compare to the wonder of seeing the results of her own that afternoon.

“Do you want some pictures to take home for dad?” the technician asked, when she’d finally finished marking down all of her findings. “It’s such a shame he had to miss this. I find that men are always mesmerized by getting to see their child this way, given that they miss out on all of those little nudges and kicks that we get to experience.”

Emma opened her mouth to point out that she didn’t have a partner to take the images home to, but before she could speak the words, an image of Killian flashed through her mind, along with a sudden revelation.

Killian hadn’t come across as cold or distant while she’d been with him that night all those months before. If anything, he’d been nothing but tender and loving towards her. And if that was an indication of the type of man he was, she knew that he’d make a wonderful father. The kind that would treasure every single moment of her pregnancy, all the way through to the birth of their child and the many years beyond.

But without a DNA test to confirm what she already knew, Killian would likely force himself to hold back. He would miss out on moments that he would never get to experience again with his child, for fear of getting too attached to a baby that could be proven not to be his. And at that moment, Emma had the answer to both of her questions on the tip of her tongue.

So, as she whispered the words, “Yes please,” to her sonographer, she made up her mind to schedule the tests necessary to give Killian that peace of mind he’d asked her for.


	4. Chapter 3

Killian was just sitting down to lunch with his parents when he felt his phone vibrate inside of his jacket pocket.

“Put that away,” his mother sighed, as she spread a fine linen napkin over her lap while the staff were busy pouring glasses of water and wine for everyone. It didn’t matter what time of the day it was, if royals sat down to eat, it was an occasion that required the finest of wines.

“I’m just gonna see who it is and then I will,” he promised, fishing out the device and flicking on the screen to see who was trying to contact him. There weren’t an awful lot of people who had his personal number, so Killian assumed that it was one of his friends trying to reach him.

He hadn’t been expecting to see the name SWAN on his screen.

“I uh… I’ll be back in a moment,” he mumbled, pushing away from the table before his parents could say anything.

He’d tried hard not to think about Emma Swan since his return to London, because he honestly didn’t know where to begin processing everything that she’d told him. And if he was being brutally honest with himself, he’d never expected her to contact him again. After all, it wouldn’t have been the first time a woman he knew had tried to play the pregnancy card for more attention, and had then disappeared when he’d asked for proof. (Although, this one, he’d actually slept with.) So he’d desperately tried to push all thoughts of the beautiful blonde from his mind and instead, focused on his royal duties. But now that she was reaching out to him, Killian couldn’t stop the memories of their night together from flooding his mind.

_God, she had the softest skin._

He could have spent hours just running his hands all over her body, seeing where she liked to be touched and where she didn’t. He wondered if she was ticklish and if he’d ever get the chance to find that out for himself.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, Killian made a beeline for the nearest bathroom. The restrooms had always been the safest places inside of the Palace. Killian and Liam had learned that at an early age. If they ever needed to get away from one of their parents, the boys would run for the nearest bathroom and lock the door safely behind themselves. Although he was no longer a little child, Killian still made use of the privacy they offered to him as an adult. So the moment he had the door locked he pulled out his phone and opened up the message to read it through - twice.

**Hi, It’s Emma (from the club. And the hospital).**

**I’ve thought about your request and I’m willing to go ahead with the test. Do you have a company that you want to handle the samples? I assume you’ll want full control over this so that you know the result is genuine and hasn’t been tampered with. However, I’ll need to know who will be performing the procedure, given the risk that it carries. And I’d prefer it to be taken by someone who has experience in doing so.**

**I’m about to start my next shift pattern, so I’m afraid the next few days aren’t an option for me. But if you let me know when you’ve chosen someone, I’m sure we can arrange something that works for us both.**

**I hope you’re well.**

**E**

Killian dropped down onto the chaise that rested against the wall of the room and ran a harsh hand through his hair. He hadn’t expected Emma to agree to the procedure, given what she’d said about the risk it carried. So he certainly hadn’t been expecting her to hand over so much control to him.

However, there was another reason that Killian had been expecting her to refuse the test. Until that moment, he still hadn’t been entirely convinced that he was the father of her child. Sure, the dates had seemed to match and Emma had come across as genuine in what she’d said to him. But a part of him had thought that maybe there had been another man. One she didn’t want to admit to sleeping with, or one that maybe fell just outside of her estimated dates. One that was the more likely candidate for her baby’s father.

Now that she’d contacted him agreeing to have a paternity test taken on her baby, Killian was starting to believe there was a very real possibility that he might actually become a father soon.

After taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down, he read Emma’s message through once more before he began tapping out a reply - and then deleted it. He typed out a few more messages and erased each one of them too. Everything he wrote sounded far too formal to send to Emma, and if she really was carrying his child, the last thing he wanted to do was accidentally offend her.

(He’d done enough of that when he’d basically accused her of being a slut the other day.)

Killian flicked a glance up to the clock at the top of his screen as his thumb hovered over her contact details. With every minute that passed, his mother would grow angrier over his absence. But deep down, he knew what he needed to do.

With another deep breath in and out, Killian hit call on Emma Swan’s number and lifted the device to his ear. Her message had said she was about to start her next shift pattern, but he was hoping that she’d chosen to message him when she had some free time, and not right before she went on duty.

“Hello?”

“Emma, hi,” he greeted softly, releasing a breath that he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “It’s Killian. I uh… I got your message,” he explained lamely. Because now that she was on the other end of the line, he wasn’t really sure why he’d called when he could have simply texted her later that evening. “How uh… how are you?”

“I’m okay,” she replied carefully. “I um… I went for a growth scan the day you were there to open the water birthing centre.”

“You did? How uh… how was that?” Killian had no idea what a growth scan was or why it was needed, but Emma didn’t sound too worried so he was sure he didn’t need to be either.

“Fine. The baby’s fine. All of the measurements suggest that he or she is healthy and growing at the average rate for a baby of his or her gestation.”

“Is it too soon to know what it is?” he asked, and then cringed a little as he heard the words echo around the room. Calling what could be his child _It_ felt wrong.

“This was the scan where I could have found out, but I chose not to. I um… I’ve seen a lot, given my choice of career. The joy of finding out if you have a son or a daughter when that little bundle’s placed in your arms is just incomparable. But if you decided that you wanted to know, I could make that happen for you,” she offered. “It’s one of the perks of being a midwife. I get unlimited access to free sonograms.”

“It’s fine,” Killian chuckled. “If you wanna be surprised then I’m happy to be surprised with you. Besides… I suck at keeping secrets,” he added ruefully. It wasn’t completely true. Killian could keep a secret. The press just had a nasty way of finding them out and publishing them in the most salacious way possible. He was pretty sure someone in their camp was leaking information, but when he’d made the suggestion to his father, the King had brushed it off as absurd. “How um… how dangerous is this test?”

“It’s only a small risk. Less than one percent of the women who go through with the procedure miscarry. But it’s still a risk, you know?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. Because while finding out that he was more than likely going to become a parent sometime in the next four to five months absolutely terrified him, a small part of himself had already started loving that child. “I um, I’ll speak to a few people here and see what they can arrange for us. We have a wonderful medical team, so I’m sure you’ll be in the best possible hands.”

“Thank you.”

For a moment, silence hung between the two of them over the line, and Killian was surprised to find that it wasn’t all that uncomfortable. Speaking with Emma that afternoon and hearing about the baby she was carrying had helped the two of them to bond a little more, and to understand each other a little better.

“I uh… I should get back to lunch before my mother sends out a search party,” he chuckled. “But I’ll call you when I’ve had a chance to speak to my people. That way, we can make plans that work for us both.”

“Thank you. I’d really appreciate that.”

“Take care, Emma.”

“You too, Your Highness.”

She had disconnected the line before the words, “Call me Killian,” could fall from his lips.

Killian sighed once more before he pocketed his phone and stood up to wash his hands. When he made his way back through to the dining room, everyone else was already present and glaring in his direction. Killian did his best to shake off their stares as he took his seat once more and asked, “So… what are we eating?”

* * *

Finding someone to collect the samples for the DNA test was proving to be a bigger problem than Killian had initially thought it would be.

He was definitely not prepared to reveal Emma’s claim to his family just yet. His grandparents had been formidable when he’d been growing up, and his grandfather had always found a way to take care of any issues that had arisen before they could be leaked to the press and the public. While Killian didn’t want to believe that any member of his family could be cruel enough to physically hurt another human being, he knew they were more than capable of hurting someone emotionally. And the last thing he wanted to do was ruin Emma Swan’s life, which meant that his usual team of doctors, surgeons, and specialists were out of the question.

After a couple of hours spent on Google, Killian finally stepped out of his office with a few different numbers for specialists around the country. He was pretty sure that he could pay one of them a hefty sum of money in order to keep them quiet about the matter at hand.

But then he was faced with another issue.

If a member of the staff was leaking information to the press, Killian had no way of knowing who that person may or may not be. He had no idea what role they fulfilled or who they worked for, and because of that, he couldn’t fully trust his own protection officers to keep his secret.

So Killian decided to conduct a small test.

The next morning, he pulled aside his chief of security to let the other man know that he had a new girlfriend and didn’t want his father to find out about her until he knew where the relationship was going. Then he sat back and waited to see if any of the usual royal reporters would break the news of Prince Killian’s secret girlfriend before the day was over.

* * *

Emma hadn’t expected to hear from the prince again until he had more information for her about who would be responsible for taking the samples required for the DNA tests, and where he wanted them taken. But Prince Killian had managed to surprise her yet again.

After their first phone conversation, he’d found little excuses to message her throughout the days she spent on shift at the hospital. They would discuss small things, like him wondering what kind of holidays she could take, or asking how her shift patterns worked so that he could plan the tests around them. And whenever he’d finished exchanging pleasantries with her, he would always find a way to ask about the baby.

It had become something of a ritual between the two of them, so when Emma flopped down behind one of the computers after delivering twins three days later, she wasn’t at all surprised to find the message on her phone from JONES.

_BabyCenter tells me the baby’s about the length of a carrot right now. That can’t be right, surely? I mean… carrots are quite small. And no_ offence _to you, you looked beautiful when I saw you last week, but you had a bump there. Surely if the baby were only the length of a carrot there wouldn’t be a bump just yet?_

Emma chuckled a little as she tried to picture the prince checking pregnancy websites for information on how the baby was developing. The poor guy clearly had a lot to learn about babies and pregnancy in general, before her March due date.

**There’s a placenta in there too. That’s how the baby gets food and oxygen while it’s inside of me. And he or she needs plenty of space in there to keep growing. But don’t worry, the baby will start getting bigger soon. And so will I.**

“What are you smiling about?” Ruby asked, dropping down into a seat beside her friend.

“I’m just happy to see my ladies so happy,” Emma fibbed, as she tucked her phone away to pull up Miss Michael’s records and begin the paperwork necessary for her transfer to a recovery ward.

“Ugh, I wish mine were. When I left the room, Sharron was still only five centimeters dilated and threatening her husband with divorce if he didn’t get it out of her before the day was over.”

“Ahh, the joys of labour,” Emma giggled, before allowing a comfortable silence to settle between the two of them.

“So… are you gonna tell me whose message made you that happy?” Ruby eventually prodded.

”It’s no one,” Emma told her, hoping that she could play down the importance of her next statement. “I just uh… I think I found the father of my child.”

“Holy shit, you did?”

Emma cast a quick look around the busy labour and delivery unit before she relaxed back into her seat when she realised that nobody seemed to have heard her friend’s exclamation. “Yeah. But could you keep it down a little, please? I’m not entirely sure how he feels about everything right now.”

Even as the words left her mouth, Emma knew they were a lie. Killian might have been asking for a paternity test but his little messages about the development of the baby, and all of his questions about the health of the two of them showed just how much he already cared. She was glad that she was one-hundred percent sure he was her baby’s father, because she knew that if the test came back negative now, he’d have been gutted.

“So, why were you smiling at his message?” Ruby wondered.

“We’re just um… we’re just trying to get to know each other a little better,” she explained vaguely. “I mean, we’re gonna have a kid together soon. It seems only right that we at least know more about each other than just our names.”

“I guess,” Ruby agreed, but Emma could tell there was more her friend wanted to say, so she waited patiently until she did. “Just promise me something, Ems? Don’t let him hurt you, okay? You were doing well without him in your life before. You don’t _need_ him in it now.”

“I know,” Emma agreed softly. Because she understood that while Prince Killian getting to know his child was the right thing for them to do, she wasn’t expecting anything more from the man. He probably had a foreign princess waiting for him to propose to her in some exotic land. “I just want him to have a chance to know his child, Ruby. Nothing more than that.”

Ruby nodded her head in understanding, and Emma could tell from the way her friend’s eyes lingered over her face that she didn’t quite believe what was being said.

But Emma knew the truth. This was not some fairytale where the prince and the common midwife he’d accidentally knocked-up during a one-night-stand would live happily ever after. And if her friend knew what she did, Ruby would understand why she wasn’t getting her hopes up for anything more than polite chat with the father of her child.

* * *

When Emma finally sat down on the sofa in her small home later that evening, she was exhausted. Twelve-hour shifts were never easy, but twelve-hour shifts while five months pregnant were getting tough. She was starting to see why the other midwives on staff had laughed when she’d announced that she planned to work right up until the week before her due date.

That probably wasn’t going to happen.

After slipping off her shoes and making herself a little more comfortable, she pulled out her phone to order some food and check her messages. There was one from her mother, confirming their lunch plans for the weekend, and another from JONES. Emma fired back a reply to her mother, assuring her that she would be at the house for ten on Sunday morning, as she always was when she wasn’t working. Then she flicked over to her message thread with the prince. He’d sent her only two small words, but those two small words had Emma’s heart hammering in her chest.

_Call me._

For the longest moment, she was frozen in place as her mind raced with all of the possibilities that could result in his need to send her those two small words. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Maybe he’d told his parents about what had happened, and they no longer wanted their son involved with her. Maybe something had happened to the King or Queen. Or maybe something had happened to him. _Shit!_ What if he’d decided that he wanted sole custody of their child?

Emma contemplated deleting those two small words and pretending that she’d never received them. But she knew that she wouldn’t be getting any sleep that evening if she did. Her mind would be too busy playing out every possible scenario for her in high definition. So with a slightly trembling hand, she pulled up his contact details and hit send before lifting the phone to her ear.

Prince Killian must have been expecting her call, as he answered before it could finish its first ring.

“Hi, Emma,” he greeted. And if she’d expected his tone to convey anything, she was sorely mistaken. His voice sounded just as level and natural as it always had, when they’d interacted before.

“Hey,” she croaked out. “I uh… I’m sorry it took me so long to call. I was working.”

“I thought you might be,” he chuckled. “That’s why I didn’t try to ring you. Do you have some time to talk?”

“Yeah. I just got home.”

“Have you eaten?” he worried, as a touch of panic crept into the edges of his words. “I don’t wanna keep you from food or anything. I mean, you’re eating for two now. And you work so hard…”

“I’ve ordered in,” she assured him. “It’ll be here soon enough.”

“Okay. Well, I uh… I just wanted to let you know that I’d found someone willing to take the samples. I thought that maybe we could hammer out some details tonight and get the appointment booked in as soon as possible. That way, neither of us are left in the dark for much longer.”

“Oh,” Emma sighed, as relief rushed through her system at his words. Of course that was all he wanted to talk to her about! “Sure. Who did you manage to find?”

“A specialist based close to you, actually. I um… I didn’t want to use one of my own team, just in case they reported it all back to my father. So I had to do some digging around. He’s promised to be incredibly discreet, and I’ve emailed over a non-disclosure agreement for signing before we make the appointment.”

“Is there a reason you don’t want your father to know?” Emma whispered across the line.

Deep down, she knew why the prince was planning on keeping this quiet. Killian wouldn’t want his family to know that he’d knocked-up some random stranger after only one night together. That would ruin his reputation, and given that he was the son of the King, she could imagine that nobody would want _that_ dirty little secret emerging anytime soon.

The more Emma thought about the future, the more the harsh reality of what she was likely to face began seeping in. She was a little ashamed to admit that she wasn’t sure she liked the possibilities that were suddenly presenting themselves to her. Nobody wanted to go through life knowing they were someone else’s dirty little secret. But that was exactly how both she and her child were likely to spend the rest of their days, now that Prince Killian knew about them.

And if he eventually did come clean, she’d be labeled as some kind of slut or whore for the rest of her life. No matter what she did or where she went, she’d always be known as the woman who’d had the prince’s child out of wedlock.

“I just don’t wanna say anything until we know for sure,” he explained, startling her away from her rapidly spiraling thoughts. “My father would only end up demanding the same tests, and he probably wouldn’t care for your comfort and schedule if he did. So I figured we could get them done first and then I’ll work out a plan to explain everything to him when I know for sure that the baby’s mine.”

“You wanna tell him?” she asked carefully. Emma was a little stunned that her mind had immediately jumped to what appeared to be all the wrong conclusions about the father of her child. She wasn’t used to being pleasantly surprised by the men she slept with. Normally, they turned out to be huge disappointments.

“Well, yeah… eventually,” Killian chuckled. “I mean, he’s gonna be a grandfather. I think he should know that. And it’s gonna be hard sneaking you and a baby into Kensington Palace on a regular basis _without_ him knowing about you both. I just um… I just want some time to come to terms with everything first and work out how best to tell him, before I do.”

Emma relaxed back into her sofa at his words. While she didn’t know Prince Killian well, something about him had inspired her trust and confidence in his actions. She was already feeling much better knowing that she wouldn’t have to live her life as his dirty little secret, once the DNA test proved what she already knew to be true.


	5. Chapter 4

“Good morning, Nana,” Emma called out, as she slipped off her coat and hung it away in the closet by the front door before making her way through to the lounge.

Ruth gave her a critical once over from head-to-toe, her eyes lingering on Emma’s rounded tummy before she grunted out a response. Of all the people in Emma’s life, her Nana had been the one who most strongly disapproved of her pregnancy. While her parents had been concerned that their daughter was planning to raise her child alone, and wouldn’t name the baby’s father, Ruth had decided that the only explanation for it all was that her granddaughter was a harlot. And Emma had given up trying to change her mind.

"Yep. Still pregnant, Nana,” she remarked, throwing the bitter old lady a smug smile.

After checking the room for her father, Emma slipped out and padded her way through to the kitchen. She wasn’t at all surprised to find her mother already stood in front of the hob, stirring something that smelled incredible.

“Hey, Mum,” she greeted, pressing a kiss to the other woman’s cheek. “How’re things?”

“Oh, everything here is fine,” Mary assured her, as she turned down the gas and then span around to face her daughter. “Oh my Goodness! Look at you,” she gushed, while both of her hands flew down to cover Emma’s bump. “When did this happen?”

Although Emma had noticed her little bump developing a few weeks back, it had been easily hidden by her clothing at the time. But sometime in the last two weeks, she’d gone from looking like she might have just had a large meal to definitely looking pregnant. And she was pretty sure her bump had grown even more overnight.

“I dunno,” she chuckled. “One minute I could see my feet and today, I’m really struggling to do that.”

“How’s baby doing in there?” Mary asked, as she turned her attention back to the bubbling saucepan once more.

“Baby’s fine. Growing and developing just as any baby should.”

“And did you find out the sex yet?”

“No, Mum. I still want it to be a surprise.”

“You didn’t even get them to write it down for me?” she pressed, turning to shoot her daughter her best wounded puppy-dog look.

“No, because then the whole town would know before I left here,” Emma chuckled, as she eased herself down into a seat at the kitchen table. “You’ll just have to wait until this little one’s born to find out.”

"Find out what?” David asked, as he made his way into the room to snag a piece of bacon from the pile that Mary had removed from the turkey she was roasting. His wife reached out to slap his hand away, but somehow he still managed to grab enough to offer a piece to his daughter.

“If we’re having a grandson or a granddaughter,” Mary explained. “Emma still doesn’t want to know.”

“Hey, you didn’t know what I was gonna be,” she argued. “And you still love me.”

“That was the nineties, Darling. It wasn’t so common back then to know what gender your baby was going to be. A lot of hospitals didn’t even give you the option. If I were pregnant now, I’d want to know.”

“And that’s what makes us different.”

Emma reached out to snag another slice of bacon from the pile before she pushed herself back to her feet. As she munched on the crispy salty treat, she made her way through to the lounge and the much more comfortable seats it had to offer. While her Nana wasn’t the best company in the world, the old woman also didn’t know how to work the television. So Emma would at least be able to find something to distract herself with, while they waited for dinner to be served.

* * *

After demolishing her mother’s famous Sunday roast, Emma helped her father to rinse the china and load the dishwasher before the two of them went to rescue Mary from Nana Ruth’s clutches. While Emma was currently the black sheep of the family, Mary had previously held that title. And when Emma wasn’t around, she was usually the one on the receiving end of Ruth’s jabs.

Emma had just lowered herself down to one of the seats in the lounge when her phone began to ring, and she sighed as she heaved herself back up to pull the device free from her pocket. A quick look down at the screen told her that this was definitely a call she should be taking, instead of declining. So she offered her parents a small smile of apology as she said, “Sorry. This is important. I’ll be back in a moment.”

When she finally had the bedroom door shut safely behind herself, she accepted the call and lifted the phone to her ear as she whispered, “Hello?”

“Emma? It’s not a bad time, is it? I uh… I thought you wouldn’t be working, but I can call back later if you are.”

“It’s fine,” she assured the prince on the other end of the line. “I’m not working, I’m uh… I’m visiting my parents. What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’ve worked a few things out here and that means I now have some free time coming up in the next couple of weeks. If you wanted me to, I could use that time to book the appointment with the specialist to have those samples collected?”

Emma dropped down onto the end of the bed and immediately regretted that decision. She knew that it would be difficult to get back up from the soft surface again when she was finished with her call. But she had a feeling that this wouldn’t be a quick conversation, and she wanted to be comfortable for it.

The truth was that Emma had almost forgotten about the DNA test she’d agreed to have taken on her baby. Prince Killian had remained in touch ever since she’d contacted him to say that she was happy to go ahead with the procedure, but he rarely brought it up in conversation. In fact, most of the time he seemed more interested in getting to know a little more about her, and her experiences with delivering babies, than he did in scheduling the appointment. But she should have known that wouldn’t last forever.

“Sure,” she finally agreed. “I uh, I’m back at work on Tuesday, but if we could arrange it for the start of the following week, that would be perfect.”

“Excellent. I’ll give Dr. Birkenheim a call and make the appointment, then text you all of the details. He’s based in the West Midlands, so that shouldn’t be too difficult for you to get to, right?”

“Not at all.”

Emma was a little touched that he’d picked a specialist so close to home for her. She knew that London must be crawling with people who could run the tests for them, and it was certainly a more convenient location for his team. Which meant that Prince Killian had likely chosen the West Midlands solely for her comfort and convenience, and she appreciated that more than she’d ever be able to express.

“I’ve heard of Dr. Birkenheim. His reputation is incredibly well respected here,” she told the prince.

“I was informed that he was one of the best in the country. I want that for you. And for the baby,” Killian rushed to add. “I’ll um… I’ll let you get back to your family now, Emma. Thanks again for agreeing to do this for me.”

“You’re welcome, Your Highness. Thank you for being so understanding,” she replied, before disconnecting the line.

Emma spent another ten minutes sat on the end of the bed, reflecting upon how wonderful he’d been about the whole process, before she struggled up to her feet and headed back to the lounge.

* * *

With all of the details of the appointment set, Emma tried her hardest to push thoughts of the test aside and focus instead on her job. It helped that there was no shortage of babies waiting to be born in the East Midlands, and seeing a new mother holding her child for the very first time never failed to raise her spirits. But her working week seemed to pass in a blur, and before she knew it, Emma was hauling herself out of bed at eight _am_ on her day off, to make the mid-morning appointment that Prince Killian had booked for her.

The drive was thankfully a rather short one, but the moment she pulled into the carpark, Emma began to wish that she’d asked one of her friends to come with her. She knew that the chances of there being complications with the procedure were slim, and that Dr. Birkenheim was one of the very best in his field. But she already loved her baby so much, and the thought of possibly losing that little person growing inside of her, had her sliding the keys back into the ignition once more.

It was the beep of her phone signalling an incoming message that stopped her from putting her car into reverse. She pulled the device out of her bag to see Prince Killian’s name on the screen, and as she unlocked it to read his message, Emma couldn’t stop the smile that was forming on her face.

_Good morning Emma and Baby Mango! Have you felt the little one move yet? BabyCenter says you should start feeling something around now, but not to worry if you haven’t._

Emma drew her keys out of the ignition and grabbed her bag before climbing out of the car. As scared as she was, Prince Killian deserved the reassurance this test would bring to him. Emma could already tell from his daily messages that he was growing attached to the idea of being a father, and she didn’t want to let her fears stop him from embracing this wonderful time in her pregnancy. So after locking her vehicle and slipping her keys away, she tapped out a quick reply to him.

**Good Morning, Your Highness. Mangos are definitely better than carrots! I haven’t felt the baby move yet, but I’m not worried. He/she will make sure I know they’re in there soon enough. And you do remember that I’m a midwife, right? I know not to panic just yet. ;-)**

She hit send on the message and then took a deep breath in and out before heading for the entrance to the clinic. Emma dropped her phone into her bag as she made her way through the heavy glass doors and over to the white wooden desk in the middle of the room, where she gave the woman sat behind it her name. It wasn’t until she was ushered through to an almost-empty waiting room that she realised the clinic had probably been closed for the morning just for her, as the only other person sitting in the space was a rather familiar face.

“Prince Killian?”

“Good morning, Emma,” he greeted formally, folding the paper he’d been reading to set it down on one of the free seats beside him.

“I uh… what are you doing here?”

The prince pushed himself up from the chair and wiped his palms down the front of his jeans before making his way over to where she was stood. Emma had forgotten just how stunningly beautiful he was. In the harsh light of day, his features seemed even more striking than they had been in the darkened nightclub and under the terrible fluorescent lighting of the hospital.

“I thought you might want some company for this,” he explained. “I um… I did some reading on the procedure and while it doesn’t sound painful, the internet said it could be a little uncomfortable. So I uh… I thought that maybe you’d want to hold someone’s hand for it… or something.” He shrugged rather adorably as he finished speaking before finally letting his eyes drop down to take in Emma’s more pronounced tummy.

“Yeah,” she chuckled, rubbing a hand gently over it. “It’s kinda popped since I last saw you.”

The prince looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her bump but instead, he ended up clenching his hands into fists by his side. Emma hated that he was forcing himself to hold back, especially as she was so certain that he was the father of her child. But she could understand why he was doing it.

“Do you want to sit?” he asked instead, and she nodded her agreement as she allowed him to lead the way over to a pair of chairs along the back wall. “So uh… how was work?”

“It was good,” she chuckled, because it was clearly obvious that the guy wasn’t sure what he should be saying at that moment, and had reverted to small talk to try and ease the awkward tension in the room. “It’s been busy, but that’s never a bad thing. It’s easier to get through twelve-hour shifts when you’re always on the move.”

“I get that,” he agreed, and Emma cocked a disbelieving brow in his direction. “Believe it or not, I _have_ put in long hours with the navy.”

“So you were telling the truth about that? You’re _actually_ a navy captain?”

Killian was a little offended that she had doubted those small snippets of truth he’d given to her during their first encounter. But given the enormous secret he’d kept from her, and just how little she appeared to know about him, he couldn’t really find it in his heart to be that upset about it.

“Of course. You know, you could have Googled me to find that out.”

“Why would I do that?” she asked him, turning a little awkwardly in her seat to face the prince. “I’d much rather hear about you from _you_ , than from Wikipedia. I mean, we’re going to have a child together. I don’t want to tell my baby stories about his or her father that they can find on the internet. I want to tell them things that you want them to know. Things that you’ve chosen to share with me.”

Killian offered her a genuine smile as he relaxed back into his seat. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been so grateful to hear that a woman hadn’t bothered to Google him before, because if there was ever anyone he wanted to tell his side of things to, it was Emma Swan.

“Well, I’m most definitely a member of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. When I finished school, I headed down to Raleigh to sign up for basic training there. Most of the men in my family are military men, so it’s like a badge of honour to them. But they usually opt for the army or the RAF. I’ve just always preferred water to land. There’s something far more relaxing about it, don’t you think? Anyway, while my father was a little reluctant to let me go because he didn’t like the idea of me being away from London so much, he didn’t stop me from signing up. I completed basic training and then spent around six years working my way up the ranks down there. It was nice being away from London and the pressures of my family. But more than that, travelling with the navy has given me the kind of experiences I _never_ would have gotten if I’d remained in the city. And I feel like it’s those experiences that have helped to shape me into the man I am today. I mean… I managed to convince my superiors and my father to allow me to be deployed, and I’ve served two tours as a result of that. Being at sea for so long really helped me to find a kind of inner peace that had always been missing in my life before then.”

Emma nodded her head to show that she was still listening, but when a slight blush began to colour the prince’s cheeks, she tilted her head slightly as she wondered what he could possibly be thinking about to cause that kind of involuntary reaction.

“The um… the night I met you was my last hurrah before my latest deployment. It was only a short one, though. Eighteen weeks off the coast of the Falkland Isles. But it was nice to be back at sea,” he told her, and Emma got the feeling that Prince Killian didn’t often get an opportunity to tell other people about his own life, in his own words.

“I’m glad you got that chance to find yourself,” she offered.

She didn’t know much about what life was like in the navy, but Emma knew what it was like to be able to escape from underneath the weight of expectation your family put upon you. It was why she’d moved to Nottingham to study, and why she’d remained in the city when she’d graduated. She loved her parents, but being away from them (and able to do her own thing) without constantly having information fed back to them was just so freeing.

Of course, they probably now assumed _that_ was the reason she’d let a complete stranger knock her up.

“Emma Swan?” an unfamiliar voice called out, and her head shot up to meet the eyes of the nurse hovering in another doorway.

“That would be me,” she declared, pushing herself back to her feet.

Prince Killian followed her lead and stood as she did, but he waited for Emma to grab her bag and follow the nurse out of the waiting room before he trailed along behind the two of them. It was almost like he was trying to remain as discreet as he could, and Emma appreciated him a little more for that.

She wasn’t at all surprised by the luxury of the room they were shown in to. While it contained most of the same supplies as the ones at the hospital she worked for, given that it was a private facility, Emma had been expecting everything to be newer and more opulent than Queens were able to offer.

The clinic certainly didn’t disappoint in that respect.

She dropped her bag onto one of the leather seats along the wall before sliding up onto the bed in the middle of the room, that was conveniently sat next to a top-of-the-range ultrasound machine. Prince Killian seemed to hesitate a little as he looked between the chair by her side and the seat next to her bag.

“I thought you were planning to hold my hand,” Emma teased gently, wiggling her shirt up to tuck it into her bra before she popped the button on her jeans. His eyes seemed to widen a little at the action as he made his way over to her side, but Emma wasn’t going to start acting shy around him now. He’d already seen her naked. That was why they were there that morning. And if he wanted to be present for the birth of his child, he was going to see a whole hell of a lot more in the months to come.

“What uh… what happens now?” he asked, while the nurse fiddled with a few buttons on the computer beside Emma’s head, and flicked through the paperwork in her hands.

“I’m just going to get everything set up and give Emma’s tummy a clean, and then we’ll get a local anaesthetic into her. That will start taking effect while we wait for Dr. Birkenheim to join us and when he does, we’ll get started with the procedure. It shouldn’t take too long.”

Killian didn’t look overly reassured by her words, but he offered the woman a tight smile of gratitude for at least answering his question. He watched in silence as she finally finished with Emma’s notes and the machine, before she briefly left the room and returned with a small tray in her hands.

Emma didn’t seem at all concerned about what was going on. She was happy to make small talk with the nurse while the other woman pulled on a pair of latex gloves and then turned her attention to cleaning her tummy.

“Relax,” Emma chuckled, rolling her head around to face the prince just as the first needle pierce her skin. “This is the easy part.”

“Says the woman who turned away the moment the needle came out.”

“Hey! There are a lot of people in this country who don’t like watching themselves being stuck with a needle,” she protested fiercely. But he could see the humour dancing behind her eyes.

“Yeah, and how many of those are also midwives?”

“Oh… shut up.”

The nurse chuckled a little at their banter before declaring, “That’s all done. I’ll go and let Dr. Birkenheim know that we’re ready for him, and then I’ll be back to start the ultrasound.” She pulled off her gloves with a snap that made Killian jump and tossed them into the small tray she’d brought into the room with her, before leaving the two of them alone.

“Thank you for doing this for me,” Killian whispered, when everything was silent once again. “It seems so much scarier when you’re actually here than just reading about it online. And all I had to do was swab my cheek.”

Emma’s head rolled back around on the bed so that she could face him once again, and she offered the prince another small reassuring smile as she did. “I know this baby is yours. There isn’t any way it couldn’t be. But I get that given who you are and what you’ve been through before, you have no reason to take my word for that. I love this little life already and if this is what it’ll take for you to let yourself love our baby too, then I’m happy to do it. Pregnancy isn’t all sunshine and roses, and you won’t get to experience this the way I will. But I don’t want you to miss out on anything else because you’re holding yourself back. So… you don’t need to thank me for doing this, Your Highness. Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Killian. It’s just Killian. Like you said, we have a child together. He or she should at least grow up hearing their parents use each other’s names instead of formal titles.”

“Okay, _Killian_.”

The prince’s smile widened at the use of his given name, but before anyone could say anything else, the door was pushed open to allow an unfamiliar man in scrubs to enter the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thanks for being so patient with me while I battle these health issues. Hopefully once this next surgery is out of the way, I'll be a little more reliable.**


	6. Chapter 5

“Your Highness, it’s an absolute pleasure to meet you.”

“And you, Dr. Birkenheim. I’ve heard many great things about your work.”

Emma watched as Killian stood from his seat to shake her doctor’s hand politely before he dropped back down again. He clearly wasn’t there to make friends, and although he hadn’t been rude or dismissive, his rigid posture was giving off a clear impression that he wasn’t in the mood for games that morning. At that moment, he looked more like the Royal Navy Captain he’d claimed to be when they first met than he ever had before.

Dr. Birkenheim could clearly read the prince as well as Emma could, as he began pulling on a pair of latex gloves while one of his assistants held out a gown for him to slide his arms into. When he was appropriately dressed for the procedure he was about to conduct, Birkenheim approached the bed that Emma was resting on.

“I see that you’re here today for a sample of amniotic fluid and placental tissue. I know you’ve probably done your homework on these issues, Your Highness, so you’ll know the risks these procedures carry. But I need to make them absolutely clear to you before we begin today.”

“I think you’re directing that information to the wrong person in this room,” Emma snapped, as all eyes dropped down to her. “ _I’m_ the one carrying this child. Not him. He’s only getting these samples because _I’ve_ agreed to it. And until you take them, I can refuse to go ahead with this procedure. So if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you stopped trying to impress the prince in the room and started doing your damned job.”

“She’s a midwife,” Killian threw in, almost as if it would help to diffuse the situation. Emma knew that it wouldn’t, but she appreciated that he was trying.

“Yes. Yes of course. I’m sorry, Miss Swan.” Birkenheim took a moment to gather his composure before he spoke again. “You’re aware that the procedures I’m about to perform carry with them a small chance of miscarriage, correct?”

“I am.”

“And you still wish to proceed knowing that information?”

Emma took a few seconds longer to answer that question, but when she did, it was with a firm, “I do.”

“Okay. The nurse here is going to get the ultrasound machine fired up so that we can see what we’re doing while I prepare everything that I’ll need to collect the samples. Try to relax,” he instructed.

Emma tried to do just that, but she couldn’t shake the tension that held her body tightly. Killian wished that he could do or say something that would help her, but everything that came to mind felt utterly inappropriate for their current situation.

The moment a loud whooshing noise began filling the room, he watched as Emma’s body relaxed back into the bed, while she turned her head to stare at the nearest screen. Killian followed her gaze and inhaled sharply when his eyes landed on what was the unmistakable form of a grainy black and white image of a baby.

His baby.

_(He hoped.)_

“Is that…?” he asked unnecessarily.

“Yeah.”

“It doesn’t look much like a mango.”

Emma snorted out a laugh as she agreed, “No. It doesn’t.”

“What’s that noise?”

“The baby’s heart,” she explained, turning away from the screen to watch the prince, who was busy watching their baby. She was pretty sure their little one was sleeping, but there was something so awe-inspiring about getting the chance to see her child before he or she was born. She couldn’t imagine what Killian must be going through at that moment, so she gave him as much time as he needed to process it all.

“Should it be so fast?”

“Yes. It’s to aid the rapid growth that takes place at this stage of life. Don’t worry, it’s completely normal.”

Killian finally pulled his eyes away to flick a glance over to the nurse who was controlling the ultrasound wand, and she nodded her head in agreement.

“Wow.”

The nurse gave them both a few more moments just to watch their baby together before she began moving the wand once more, so that it would be out of Birkenheim’s way, but still give him a good view of what was happening inside of Emma’s womb.

“Okay, Miss Swan. I need you to keep as still as you possibly can for me.”

Emma caught herself nodding her agreement before she realised what she was doing. As soon as she did, she cut off the motion and offered the doctor a soft,  
“Okay,” before she turned her head away from what she knew was coming.

She’d been fully expecting Prince Killian to want to watch the procedure, or even to keep his eyes fixed on the screen. So she was a little surprised to find his gaze locked on her face when her eyes met his.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked, his voice pitched low to keep their conversation between the two of them.

“Yes.” If anything, seeing his reaction to their child had only made Emma more determined than ever before to give him that confirmation he so desperately needed. If this was how he behaved when he held himself back, she couldn’t imagine how he would be with solid proof that he was going to be a father.

Or when he was handed his child for the very first time.

Emma had to bite down on her tongue to stop her eyes from tearing up at the mental image that sprang to mind from that thought.

Killian’s hand moved slowly to pick up her own from where it rested on the bed between them, before he laced their fingers together in silent support. Emma could hear the doctor talking with his assistant behind her, and the tell-tale sound of sterile packaging being opened, but the prince’s entire focus remained on her face.

“Okay, Miss Swan. I’m going to insert the first needle now,” Birkenheim warned. “You might feel some pressure in the area, but remember to remain as still and calm as you can for me, please.”

The anaesthetic did its job, preventing Emma from feeling any pain from the insertion, but she certainly felt the pressure as the long needle was pushed through her skin and into her womb.

“Does it hurt?” Killian worried, as he watched her brow crease a little with the move.

“No. It’s just… odd,” she eventually settled on, because the sensation was difficult to describe.

Killian nodded his head, either to show that he understood or that he’d heard her. Emma wasn’t sure which. But the two of them lapsed into silence after that as the doctor carefully withdrew his first sample containing amniotic fluid.

While the procedure wasn’t exactly painful, Emma felt a little discomfort as the needle was removed. It came with a sensation not too dissimilar to a sharp period pain, and she hissed a little at the unexpectedness of it.

“What? What’s wrong?” the prince worried.

“Miss Swan’s probably experiencing something similar to a painful cramp,” the nurse explained, as Emma focused on breathing through the sensation and holding her body still. “It’ll pass pretty quickly.”

As soon as the needle was out she felt the cramp begin to die off, and her body relaxed back into the bed once more as it did. Emma hadn’t realised that she’d been squeezing Killian’s hand tightly throughout the process, but when she did, she offered him a sheepish smile and a small apology.

“It’s fine,” he assured her, waving away her concerns. “It’s good practice for the big day, huh?”

“You wanna be there for the birth?” Emma couldn’t remember seeing anything about a royal giving birth recently, but she was pretty sure men were usually forbidden from being in the same room as their wives while they delivered. Or was that rule different given that she was a commoner and not a princess?

“Of course. If the baby’s mine, I don’t wanna miss seeing my first child brought into the world,” he explained. “I mean… as long as you want me there.” The prince suddenly looked a little unsure of himself and it was quite an endearing look on him.

“Definitely,” Emma promised. “Who else is going to hold my hand?”

The two of them chuckled a little at her words but it was cut short when the sounds of the second needle being prepared met their ears.

“Another?” Killian asked.

“We just need to take a sample of placental tissue now, Your Highness. Then the procedure will be complete.”

“Okay.”

Killian nodded his head once more but Emma was sure it was just his way of showing that he’d heard what was being said, as opposed to understanding what he was being told. Normally, the procedures were performed at different times during a woman’s pregnancy. But most of those only took place because an abnormality had been discovered during a routine check-up. Emma knew that the NHS didn’t like offering DNA tests at this stage of a baby’s life, which is why she knew that there was very little information online about both procedures being used for that purpose.

The pressure on her tummy increased once more as a second long needle pierced her skin, and she squeezed down hard on Killian’s hand when it did. He brought the one not currently being crushed in her grasp over to cover their joined hands before deciding to distract her with some small talk.

“So… what made you decide you wanted to be a midwife?”

“I uh… I just love babies and helping people. It felt like the perfect career choice.”

“It definitely seems that way. Your boss had plenty of glowing words to say about you when I came to open the new birthing suite.”

Emma flushed a little at the knowledge that her boss had been talking about her work to the man who had last seen her naked. But given everything that had happened in the last few months, she supposed that was probably low down on the list of embarrassing situations she’d found herself in.

“How many babies do you think you deliver in a year?”

“Uh… close to a fifty,” she guessed. “There’s always someone somewhere having a baby. I usually average one or two a week, depending on how fast a woman’s labour is. Some days I can deliver three in a shift, but that’s the exception and not the rule.”

“Wow. I never realised how busy maternity wards could be.”

“Yeah. Sadly, the NHS is seriously understaffed and underfunded. So we’re usually rushed off our feet. There have uh… there have even been days where we’ve had to lock the doors and turn women in labour away, because we simply don’t have space for them to safely deliver their child with us.”

“Jesus Christ. Seriously?”

“You don’t know this?” she asked, disbelief colouring her tone. Those kinds of headlines had featured in both local and national news outlets already that year.

“Pregnancy isn’t really my area of speciality,” he chuckled. “But they uh… we’re also not supposed to get involved in politics, so I tend to stay away from that. I can’t accidentally say something I’m not supposed to if I don’t know anything about it.” Killian knew that remaining ignorant wasn’t the best way to handle his situation. But politics didn’t interest him at all, so he’d never gone out of his way to find out that information.

“I get that. It’s why I didn’t recognise you,” Emma explained. “Royalty isn’t my area of speciality, and you guys rarely have a direct impact on my life. I’ve never really bothered to study who was and wasn’t a part of your family. I just know your dad, as his picture’s on all of our stamps and cash.”

Killian barked out a loud laugh at that confession. Nobody had ever described their knowledge of his father that way before, but he imagined that it applied to a fair number of the population.

“Will you uh… where are you planning to give birth?” he asked. Because now that she’d told him about just how busy maternity wards could be, Killian was suddenly liking the idea of a private hospital with a place reserved for her to deliver his child.

“At my hospital. They won’t turn me away. Don’t worry.”

He relaxed a little at her assurance, but still made a mental note to look into the best private maternity hospitals in the country. Just in case.

Emma felt that slight cramping sensation once more, which told her that the needle was being withdrawn from her tummy, and she sighed in relief when she heard it hit the tray. The ultrasound machine was still on and her baby’s heart was still thumping strongly. It really was the best sound in the world.

“Okay, Miss Swan. That’s both samples collected,” Dr. Birkenheim announced, and she rolled her head around to face him. “His Royal Highness is taking them back with him for analysis, so I’ll get them prepared for transportation and sign the last of the documentation that you’ve requested. Everything else is now your responsibility.”

Emma nodded her head in understanding. She’d been expecting as much. Killian would want complete control over the samples, just so that nobody could be accused of tampering with them to fix the results. If she were in his position, she’d have demanded the same thing.

“As you probably already know, there’s a chance that you may feel some cramping and there could be some spotting in the next couple of days,” Birkenheim warned, as Emma nodded her head again. She’d read up on the procedure as thoroughly as she could, before she’d climbed into her car that morning. “That’s all normal, but if it persists for over five days, give us a call and we’ll get you back in to have a look at what’s going on. If at any time in the next two weeks you experience persistent or severe pain; a temperature greater than thirty-eight degrees; chills or shivering; heavy vaginal bleeding; clear discharge; or contractions, then call us straight away. Okay?”

“I will do,” she agreed.

Emma turned to look at Killian, who seemed to be a little horrified by the warning being issued to her, and squeezed his hand gently. She knew the usual spiel by now. She’d given it to enough patients herself. But she could understand why it would worry him.

“I’ll leave you to get cleaned up. It was a pleasure to meet you both.” Birkenheim extended his hand to shake Emma’s first, and then the Prince’s behind her. He carefully gathered up the two samples he’d collected and then left the room through the same door he’d entered. Emma could just make out a large man in a black suit following a step behind him, before the door closed completely.

The nurse took a little longer to finish cleaning everything up and while she did, Emma gently wiped away what was left of the gel on her tummy and buttoned up her jeans.

“You might be a little sore for a few days,” the nurse added, as she watched Emma grimace when she swung her legs back over the side of the bed. “But it’ll pass. Try and take it easy for the rest of the day.”

“Thanks. I will.”

The nurse gave one final sweeping glance around the room before she exited too, leaving Killian and Emma alone together once more.

“Okay,” the prince declared after a moment, standing up to stretch out his cramped muscles.

Emma absolutely didn’t watch as the emerald green sweater he was wearing rode up with his movements, showing off an enticing peek at the V of his hipbones. And her mind certainly didn’t provide her with flashes of images from their first night together, and how those muscles would tense and relax as he moved over her. And inside of her.

“Are you hungry? I could eat. Do you want something to eat?” he asked.

“I uh… is that really such a good idea?” At the quirk of his brow, she clarified, “For us to be seen out together in public? Before you have those results.”

“I was thinking of getting something we could eat in the back of the car,” he replied sheepishly. “There _has_ to be a Burger King around here somewhere.”

Emma wasn’t sure why she found the mental image of a prince eating from Burger King so funny, but she couldn’t control the laugh that made its way up her chest and out of her mouth. Unfortunately, the movement pulled terribly on both of the injection sites in her tummy. She winced and her laughter cut off abruptly as her hand flew down to rub her bump tenderly.

“What’s wrong?” Killian worried, stepping forward with his hand extended. Emma was certain that he was going to reach out and touch her bump, but at the last second, he dropped his arm back down to his side and clenched his fingers into a tight fist.

“I’m just a little sore,” she explained. “And it’s uh… It’s fine, you know? You can touch it if you want to. The bump, I mean. You can touch the bump.”

“I uh… maybe sometime soon?”

It was code for, _when I know the baby’s mine_ , and Emma knew it. But she couldn’t begrudge him that. He’d already shown more than enough interest in her pregnancy for her to know that as soon as he had those results, he’d be the kind of hands-on father she’d always dreamed of having for her child.

“Let’s get you home, shall we?” he offered instead. “My driver can take you back and save you a painful journey on the train.”

“Why would I take the train? I drove myself here.”

“Pregnant women can drive?”

The look on his face was so genuinely confused that Emma felt a little bad for the way she laughed at his comments. She had thought that piece of information was fairly common knowledge, but apparently, she needed to do more to prepare the prince for what was about to come.

“Yes. We’re pregnant. Not dying.”

“Well then… I’ll drive you home. The nurse said you should be resting. Driving isn’t resting.”

“You’re not insured to drive my car!” It was a lame excuse, but it was the first thing that popped into Emma’s mind. She just couldn’t picture Prince Killian sitting behind the wheel of her Vauxhall Corsa. She wasn’t entirely sure he’d even fit behind it.

“If we get stopped I’ll just explain to the officer on duty that the woman carrying my child just had surgery on said child, so I thought it best to drive her stubborn arse home. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

Killian didn’t wait for Emma’s response. Instead, he marched straight out of the private room and into the front lobby, where two men in fancy suits immediately stood to follow him out.

“I’m driving Miss Swan home, Jacob. You can follow behind us,” he declared, as he hurried down the steps and over to the small red Corsa that was the only vehicle parked in the lot.

Emma wasn’t sure which one of the men in black was named Jacob, but she heard a clear and firm, “Yes, Your Highness,” in response to Killian’s words, as both men followed after their charge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thanks for sticking with me during this difficult period in my life.**

**Author's Note:**

> **Thanks for reading.**


End file.
